The border-land of insanity / by W.B. Kesteven.

  • Kesteven, W. B. (William Bedford), 1812-1891.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The border-land of insanity / by W.B. Kesteven. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    5/10 (page 3)
    either to his neighbour or to his own well-being, yet entirely insusceptible to the finer subsidiary vibrations of the mental processes which underlie every mental opera- tion. It is quite possible for such a man to do wrong without knowing it to be wrong. At the same time, it may be almost impossible to prove this fact, as evidence from his previous actions tending towards that proof may be entirely absent.* Arising, also, out of this diffused neurotic atmosphere, is the undefinable border-land of insanity, the limits of which shade off by degrees into pronounced insanity. The entire unconsciousness on the part of most of the subjects of impending mental disorder, is the source of great difficulty in preventive measures. There may, how- ever, be the very reverse conditon, that of a dread of insanity, in itself imaginary, the climax of hypochondriasis, and the source of melancholia. This state is pointed out by Dr. Bucknill as existing in King Lear : Conscious of his mental state, and even of its cause, he feels the goad of madness already urging him, and struggles and prays against it, and strives to push it aside. He knows its cause to be unbounded passion, and that to be kept in temper would avert it: ' Oh, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven ! Keep me in temper; I would not be mad ! ' + Dr. Bucknill contrasts the melancholy of Lear, with that of Jaques, who cherished his melanchol}', but, if he had thought fit to do so, retained the power to oppose, if not to repress it. Herein, adds Dr. Bucknill, is the psychical difference between the sane and the insane melancholist; with the essential difference, that in the * Nervous Dulness, by W. H.Kesteven, Jounial Mental Science, ]u\y, 1882. t Bucknill's Psychology of Shakspcarc, page 146.